


You'll Be Taken Care Of

by Gloomier



Category: Naruto
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, Light Angst, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Okay but it's quite fluffy, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Taking Care of Hatake Kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-11-02 06:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20649092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloomier/pseuds/Gloomier
Summary: For a long time, Kakashi has hated his birthday. It's an annual reminder of things he has lost in his life: his childhood, his father, his sensei. But Umino Iruka gives him a reason to love and appreciate it again.





	You'll Be Taken Care Of

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kakairu Week 2019 to celebrate Kakashi's birthday! Happy birthday Kakashi, you silly asshole!
> 
> Song lyrics are from All Is Full of Love by Björk

_ You'll be given love _

_ You'll be taken care of _

_ You'll be given love _

_ You have to trust it _

* * *

Kakashi hasn’t celebrated his birthday is a very long time.

The novelty of it vanishes when he reaches age six being just a regular kid is no longer an option for him. He enters the academy a full two years before most children start, where his teachers tell him and all the other children that being a ninja means you could die tomorrow in the defense of your village, that birthdays and settling down isn’t in the cards for warriors like them.

When Kakashi graduates and gets a genin team, Minato-sensei—complete opposite of what a shinobi should be—gives all his students a gift on their respective birthdays. They aren’t worthless gifts like what civilians would give either. No, Kakashi gets a pair of armguards lined with light, metal plates.

_ “Just because we’re shinobi doesn’t mean we have to give up the things that make us happy,” _ Minato had told Kakashi when he initially refused the gift. _ “You’re allowed to be happy, Kakashi-kun.” _

And he does feel happy. The armguards are a good, sensible gift that sees a lot of action and every time Kakashi nearly loses an arm, he is thankful that his sensei thought of him.

(It’s one of two things he still has of Minato, the other being the photograph of his entire genin team.)

Kakashi comes to loathe his birthday when his father commits suicide a few days before it.

Following the death of both his father and his sensei, Kakashi takes measures to avoid the day entirely. He takes extended solo missions just to get out of the village the week that day falls on. As infuriating as Gai is, Kakashi never had the heart to be intentionally cruel to him. So he ran away.

Kakashi eventually lets Gai treat him to dinner the day after under the guise of a challenge.

Over time, the hatred and betrayal he’s carried since his childhood become easier to bear when he gets a genin team. A trio of wildly different personalities that test every part of him. His sensei’s son being the biggest handful of the three.

He’s not a very good teacher, he knows, but he does his best to impart on them all the teachings of Minato-sensei. He hasn’t celebrated his birthday in fifteen years, going on sixteen, but he has no qualms with giving small gifts to his three hellions. Kakashi’s not as good as gift giving either, but he feels an unsettling warmth curl in his gut watching them light up over receiving their favorite foods.

Kakashi’s perspective violently shifts when the chuunin exams come around and a chuunin-sensei by the name of Umino Iruka confronts him head-on about allowing his team to participate in the exams. Iruka tells him it’s too soon and Kakashi has never been confronted like this before. Iruka doesn’t balk under the weight of Kakashi’s withering stare or his inappropriate joke about breaking his students. It’s admirable, and Kakashi can’t help but have a lot of respect for the man, although his over-protectiveness is a bit misplaced. Kakashi isn’t so callous as to purposefully hurt the kids.

After that, he runs into Iruka-sensei a lot. Kakashi sees him at the mission desk, runs into him at the market or in the halls of Hokage tower on occasion. Kakashi hardly expects the teacher to walk up to him one day, giving him a deep bow and apologizing for the way he acted during the meeting for the exam. Hell, he even has the nerve to ask Kakashi out to dinner as penance.

The acceptance flies out of Kakashi’s mouth before he can think about it.

It’s arguably the best decision he’s ever made.

Their relationship starts with many more dates after that. Actual dates. Iruka is brave and has no trouble speaking his mind, Kakashi comes to discover. He isn’t good with people at all—something Iruka seems to find both mildly irritating and disgustingly hilarious—but somehow they just _ click. _ Everything feels right when Kakashi is around Iruka.

They’ve been together for almost a year when Iruka presents him with a birthday gift. The first-ever that Kakashi has been given in years. Kakashi looks completely dumbfounded for a second, and what's worse is that he’d taken his mask off to eat dinner (they were at Iruka's apartment; it was Iruka’s turn to make dinner, and Kakashi to bring the alcohol). It allows Iruka to the full range of Kakashi’s emotional turmoil pass over his features as he stares down at the small box-shaped gift wrapped in paper covered in cute little dogs. Thankfully Iruka doesn't comment on it.

Kakashi has—well, _ had _—a routine for his birthday: do missions, tell himself that he literally just popped into existence and his birthday didn’t exist, then eat dinner with Gai the day after the non-existent day.

And somehow Iruka has managed to completely demolish it unexpectedly.

“Well, are you going to open it?” Iruka asks softly. Kakashi hears the faintest tells of disappointment and uncertainty in Iruka’s voice—they cause it to waver enough that its sound makes Kakashi’s chest tighten.

“Yes,” Kakashi replies and forces his body to move. His hands tremble ever so slightly. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting it.”

It’s a weak reply, but Iruka accepts it with a smile.

Kakashi carefully and meticulously unwraps the gift, making sure not to rip the paper. It’s stupid, but it means a lot to Kakashi that Iruka bothered to get him something, even if Kakashi is against celebrating his birthday. He doesn’t want to destroy any part of it.

(He keeps the square of wrapping paper folded and hidden away in a box.)

Inside the previously-wrapped box, resting on a bed of white fluff is a shiny bronze key.

“I don’t understand,” Kakashi says after a minute of staring down at it, trying to figure out the intention behind such a gift.

Iruka snickers at him. “It’s a key to my apartment.”

“I want you to move in with me,” he elaborates when Kakashi doesn’t respond the way he wants.

_ Oh. _

Grief and sorrow sucker-punch him in the gut. He hasn’t received a gift, let alone a sensible one, since Minato-sensei, and here’s Iruka, offering Kakashi a more permanent way out of his loneliness.

“Thank you,” Kakashi whispers, holding the box tightly in his hand.

Kakashi will forever remember the baffled wonderment on Iruka’s face over the tears the rolled down his own.

*

Kakashi slowly comes to full wakefulness, luxuriating in the comfy warmth of his bed as he stretches out. He’d like nothing more than to pull his husband to him and wrap himself around Iruka for morning cuddles, but his husband’s side of the bed is empty and he makes a displeased noise in the back of his throat.

It’s a hard decision, choosing between staying in bed and taking an unannounced personal day, or getting up and heading to the office to finish up paperwork. His assistants had threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t show up though. It’s so mean of them, he was the Hokage! You’d think that he lead the village, but in reality, it was the people that served under him.

Kakashi throws the blankets off with a mournful huff and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

He goes to the dresser, meaning to pull out his clothes for the day, only to find a set of freshly laundered fatigues laying on top of the dresser. It’s his oldest set which is well-worn and comfortable. They had been dirty and covered in paint as he’d worn them the other day. Gai needed help repainting the rooms of his home and that had naturally devolved into a challenge.

Kakashi can’t help but smile.

The bathroom is the next step in his daily routine. He discovers all the things he uses: toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, shampoo, and conditioner have been replaced with new copies. Kakashi grins as the hot water rushes over him and wakes him up. He feels refreshed and relaxed.

When he’s dressed and groomed, he heads for the kitchen, ready to consume no less than two cups of coffee and eat last night’s take out leftovers. It’s not ideal, but he’s not feeling up to making something just for himself. He definitely would have cooked breakfast had Iruka been here.

Upon entering the kitchen, he immediately spots the differences.

There’s a pot of coffee, already brewed and sitting on the counter with warming seals placed on the pot to keep it warm. On the kitchen table, sitting in wait beneath a preservation barrier—originally conceived by the Yamanaka to keep plants fresh and useable, but adapted by Iruka for saving food due to Kakashi’s late nights—is his favorite meal: salt-broiled saury and eggplant miso soup.

After three unexpected occurrences, there’s still no note, but it’s very obviously Iruka’s doing.

Kakashi goes to work happier than he’s ever been, but the oddities don’t end at home.

When he gets to the office, he isn’t immediately hounded by his army of assistants for being an hour late. They’re all calm and laid back, many of them are openly smiling at him as opposed to the neutral-borderline-annoyed resignation he’s usually met with (he’s not exactly the easiest Hokage to work with, after all).

He finds out just exactly what has his subordinates in a happy mood.  
  
Kakashi’s office has been completely cleaned—the windows are so spotless he can hardly tell that they’re there. He can smell the faint lemon-scented, all-purpose cleaner lingering in the air. His desk has been completely organized too; the pile of general paperwork and scrolls that he had left last night to complete this morning are gone. Likely filed away by whoever cleaned the office from top to bottom. His pens, as well as his calligraphy brush and ink, have been replaced with new versions—much like his toiletries.

The morning's affairs go much quicker than anticipated, so much so that he has the chance to get a head start on the coming week’s work.

Tenzo shows up around lunchtime with a freshly-made bento along with a cold can of his favorite tart cherry juice.

“Maa, Tenzo, I appreciate the thought, but I’m taken,” Kakashi teases him.

“It’s not from me,” Tenzo replies as he deposits the gift of food and juice on Kakashi’s desk, but doesn’t splutter or blush. Not at all how Kakashi was expecting his Kohai to react. Strange.

“Are you going to tell me who it’s from?”

“Nope!” Tenzo says and subsequently shunshins out of the office before Kakashi can press for answers.

Around four o’clock, Naruto and Sakura show up and give Kakashi a note and relieve him from work for the day without any further explanation. Naruto, who has been and can still be loud and obnoxious, doesn’t give anything away. Kakashi feels a great measure of pride for his sensei’s son. For both of them. Naruto and Sakura have come a long way from the scrawny little twelve-year-olds they once were, even with the fuck-up they had for a sensei.

“Aren’t you going to read it, Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto asks, looking at him expectantly.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” Kakashi mutters and fiddles with the folded piece of paper in his hands.

It was short and to the point. The words _ ‘Onsen, 5 o’clock. Don’t be late’ _ were scrawled in familiar handwriting. Kakashi grins behind his mask because of course, the author of this note knows he’s often late for everything, typically an hour (or more depending on who he’d be meeting).

For this, whatever it is that’s been planned, Kakashi will be early.

At the hot spring, a private room has been booked just for him, but the couple that runs the place won’t tell him who had made the reservation, even though he’s the Rokudaime. They smile at him with knowing looks and wave him off to follow a hostess.

Kakashi gets his hopes up that Iruka, who has been pampering him for the better of the day, will be waiting for him in his room. His hopes are dashed, but he distracts himself by soaking in the room’s secluded spring. The solitude is relaxing and the hot water comforting. Kakashi hasn’t had a vacation ever, always preferring to serve his village rather than himself, both as a distraction and as self-inflicted punishment. It’s still a point of contention between him and Iruka, after all these years.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Kakashi hears the shoji door inside the room slide open, signaling that it’s time for dinner. He sits in the spring a little longer, giving the hostess and her assistants time to layout the spread (as his room was private, Kakashi didn’t feel the need to wear any sort of face coverings).

But then the shoji separating the private spring and the room slides open. Kakashi is immediately on alert and covers his face with the washcloth that had been sitting on his head just a moment ago.

“It’s only me,” Iruka says as he steps out of the room.

Kakashi relaxes immediately.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on people?” Kakashi says as he watches Iruka. His words lacked any real heat.

Iruka grins and moves toward the water, pulling the hair-tie out of his hair and shrugging off his robe as he goes, then steps down into the water to sit next to Kakashi.

Kakashi automatically moves closer to Iruka and curls and arm around his waist, holding him close. He nuzzles into Iruka’s coconut-scented hair and the warm, tan skin just below his ear.

“Do I have you to thank for all the nice things that have happened to me today?” Kakashi asks, his lips moving against Iruka’s skin.

Iruka nods, sighing contentedly and rests a hand on Kakashi’s thigh, but not in a sexual manner; just a comfortable point of contact.

Kakashi smiles and trails lingering kisses along Iruka’s neck. “And what have I done to deserve being pampered?”

Iruka shuffles away, putting a few inches of space between them, and pins him with an incredulous look.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” he says. Kakashi doesn’t know what he’s forgotten. All the important stuff has been taken care of, and he doesn’t remember doing anything that deserved to be rewarded like this. Iruka takes his silence as an affirmative and gasps, “You _ did _forget!” and bursts into a fit of giggles.

Having spent so long trying to forget his birthday, it was just a habit at this point, even with Iruka reminding him it existed each year. 

Kakashi pouts at him.

Eventually, Iruka’s laughter peters out and he relaxes against Kakashi again.

“Happy birthday, Kakashi,” Iruka says as he’s guiding Kakashi’s chin in his direction. 

Then Iruka closes in, pressing his warm, soft lips against Kakashi’s. The touch goes no further than a gentle, steady pressure and it’s plenty because Kakashi can feel so strongly the love Iruka bestows on him and he knows Iruka can feel it too.

But he tells Iruka so anyway.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

* * *

Maybe not from the sources

You have poured yours

Maybe not from the directions

You are staring at


End file.
